2 gang members held

Police have arrested two gang members who allegedly killed the driver and the helper of a rice-laden truck after hijacking it on January 2.
The arrestees at a press briefing at the Detective Branch of Police office yesterday confessed to both the crimes, and said they dumped the two bodies into a ditch at Banani in the capital.
Abu Salam, 48, of Shariatpur and Hashem Gazi, 58, of Sunamganj were arrested on Saturday night.
Police said they also seized the hijacked truck and the truck used to commit the crime.
On January 9, police recovered the decomposed bodies of the deceased driver and helper from a ditch near Dhaka Gate at Banani. The victims were later identified as Nurul Islam, 32, and Mithu, 30.
Mahbubur Rahman, deputy commissioner of DB police (North), said the gang used to rob rice-laden vehicles on different highways and sell the rice to some particular wholesalers in the city.
Police identified them all, he said, adding, they are trying to arrest them.
Abu Salam told reporters that he and his cohorts including Chandu, Jalal, Awal and Abu Taleb were waiting with an empty truck at a filling station at Tongi, on the outskirt of the capital, on January 2.
They stopped the Dhaka-bound rice-laden truck by putting up a barricade on road at House Building area of Uttara.
“We reached Banani around 4:00am and they (cohorts) threw the victims in the ditch,” said Abu.
Hashem Gazi, the alleged ringleader of the gang, said he bought the truck recently for use in robberies. “I gave each of them Tk 3,000 before the incident,” said Hashem, who planned the robbery at his shop at Faridabad of Shyampur in the capital.